If Calciomercato.com’s Thursday piece mapped the escape routes, Guido Vaciago’s Friday-morning editorial in Tuttosport closes most of them. Three days before the Napoli match, the Turin newspaper that carries the most institutional weight in the city has declared its position clearly: Spalletti should stay. The reasoning is not a defence of his results. It is a defence of a principle.
“Confirming Spalletti Is Right. Many Fans Won’t Agree”
The opening is deliberately confrontational towards the section of the fanbase calling for Conte: “Many fans will not agree, particularly those who dream of Conte. And they have every right to — the right of those who love and remember and cannot accept what Juventus has become now.” The respect for the emotional logic of that position is genuine, but the argument that follows is unequivocal.
Part of the degradation that has damaged the club is attributed to the trampling of habits and labels — the intrinsic customs of Juventus as an institution. “At Juventus you do not change the manager during the season, as a rule — and above all you do not do it for three consecutive seasons, with the hysteria of certain provincial clubs.” The jab at provincial hysteria is pointed: this is a club that built its identity on stability and institutional patience, and the recent pattern of dismissals contradicts that identity at the root.
Vaciago does not exonerate Spalletti: “Not that Spalletti has no responsibility for this horrible start of the season.” But the argument is structural: before thinking about another manager “as if the man on the bench were the only pivot around which the club’s destiny revolves,” a more articulated analysis of the problems trapping Juventus’s ambitions is required.
“A Grave Lack of Respect Towards the Bianconeri People”
The Genoa assessment is the most severe in the column: “The defeat at Genoa, for the way it came about, was a grave lack of respect to the Juventus people.” The language of disrespect — mancanza di rispetto — is the institutional register of the club’s own vocabulary about what the shirt demands. Carnevali’s pitch-side ultimatum is endorsed: “He did well. After three manager changes in three years it is time for the players to take responsibility.”
The specific accusation against the squad is the most cutting phrase of the editorial: “The impression is that they do not realise what they are wearing and what wearing it entails.” This is the same diagnosis offered by Di Canio (“no soul”), Ambrosini (“no personality”), McKennie (“the inner things cannot be trained”), and Spalletti himself (“we need to see if these players have that everything”).
“Everyone Is Called to a Leap in Quality — the Directors, the Manager, the Staff, the Company”
The column’s most original contribution is the extension of responsibility beyond the players. “All of Juventus is called to a leap in quality to rediscover the roots of the club, which sink into a granitic culture of work and effort. The management, the manager, the staff, the company: Juventus’s history teaches that everyone contributes to victories, and if victories do not come every component must examine its conscience and give something more.” This is the institutional counterpart to Borriello’s argument that what is missing is the “presence” of Agnelli — Vaciago is saying that the entire club, not just the dressing room, must rediscover the culture of work.
The Realistic Target — Fourth Place Is Now an Everest
The honest arithmetic is delivered without cushioning: “In this moment Juventus finds itself in a very ugly situation: fourth place, which in itself was not such an exciting objective for a people used to lifting trophies, is an Everest seen from here, but it must be reached.” Europe League is acknowledged as a worthwhile objective. But the final sentence is the one that will circulate: “Restore Juventus to the juventini, and do it as quickly as you can — they have already waited too long.”
The linked pieces in the article’s body point to the other Tuttosport headlines from Thursday-Friday: “Juve, walking chaos — Bremer should have been sent to the stands, Spalletti is not the right guide,” a piece on “alarming image that sums up everything — Juve ugly from the start,” and “Spalletti Massimo Decimo Posto — fierce social media irony after Genoa-Juve.” The social media mockery of Spalletti’s “maximum tenth place” is the other side of the coin from Vaciago’s measured defence — the fanbase’s anger has found its ironic register.
